Fall
2015
grainswest.com
39
CCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND
safety (OHS) is coming soon to an
Alberta farm near you.
If you’re surprised, you shouldn’t be.
Our province is the only one in Canada
where farmworkers do not fall under
OHS regulations, though the former
Progressive Conservative government
had been moving (very slowly) to bring
Alberta in line with the rest of the country.
Then, Premier Rachel Notley made OHS
an issue during last spring’s provincial
election. “[Farmworkers] work without
the right to organize; take rest periods;
or receive the minimumwage, safety
protections or mandatory workers’
compensation coverage,” she pointed
out in a statement released April 28, just a
week before the NDP’s stunning electoral
victory. In July, Oneil Carlier, agriculture
and forestry minister, and Lori Sigurdson,
jobs, skills, training and labour minister,
made it clear that the new government
would be moving ahead with changes
sooner rather than later.
Reactions from labour, industry
representatives and producers have
ranged from enthusiasm to grudging
acceptance. However, virtually everyone
recognizes that the change was
inevitable. Everyone would agree that
safety is a good thing.
Agriculture, like all industries, carries
risk. According to Canadian Agricultural
Injury Reporting, 1,975 accidental
agricultural deaths were recorded in
Canada between 1990 and 2008.
Fatality rates have been declining in
recent years, but it seems obvious that
even one preventable farm fatality is one
too many.
At the same time, the prospect of
major regulatory changes—especially
ones initiated by a labour-friendly
government—was bound to make some
in the industry uneasy. Carlier is eager
to put those worries to rest. “We’re the
new cowboy in town,” he admitted.
“We’re going to make sure we have
proper consultations with farm workers
or producers, small or large.”
So far, Carlier has been heartened by
the reception he has received. “I’m very
optimistic [from] the folks I’ve talked to.
They have a few misgivings about how
things are going to work. For the most
part, people are not only realizing this
is going to happen, [but also] looking
forward to it, because it’s the right thing
to do.”
Formal consultation began in late
June, when Carlier and Sigurdson met
with representatives for farmers and
ranchers. Sigurdson’s department will
be responsible for the nitty gritty of
any changes—things like the right to
organize (unionize), minimum wage,
restrictions on the number of hours
worked, and mandatory workers’
compensation coverage—but she
insisted that her first job is to listen.
“There’s no master plan that we have
hidden in the bottom drawer that we’re
going to pull out,” she said. “We really
want to create this in a collaborative way
with the farm and ranch sectors.”
Ron Axelson, a
consultant with the
Intensive Livestock
Working Group of
Alberta, was at the
June meeting. He
said that his group
had been moving
toward OHS long
before the new
government arrived
on the scene. “We’ve actually been
working on this issue for over two years,
and I think we do have a fairly strong
consensus—on the livestock side of
things anyway—that change is required.”
Axelson and his colleagues have
a fairly clear idea of how they’d like
things to proceed. “We want to move
forward in a staged or incremental basis,
starting with fatality and serious incident
reporting,” he said. Currently, OHS has
no mandate to investigate injuries or
deaths on farm worksites.
Next, farmers and ranchers hope to
work collaboratively with government to
develop technical OHS standards aimed
specifically at farming. “The main worry
is that the exemption will be removed
and that suddenly agriculture will be
O
under exactly the same technical rules as
the rest of the general industrial sectors,”
said Axelson. “That isn’t going to work
for agriculture, because there are some
very unique circumstances.”
Axelson also worries that workers’
compensation coverage may be
mandated across the board—in some
cases displacing private insurance
that he said actually provides better
coverage for workers. “We’re afraid
that there will be some kind of
draconian regulation brought in that
says everybody should be under [the
Workers’ Compensation Board], and
that’s the end of it.”
Overall, though, Axelson welcomes
the move towards OHS on farms,
particularly if it’s backed by the training
and support to foster an overall culture
shift. “A regulation, on its own, will
do nothing,” he argued. “It’s the
implementation of a philosophy, or
mindset, of farm
safety that’s
going to make the
difference.”
Sharon
McKinnon, head
of the Crop Sector
Working Group,
attended the June
meeting as well,
and came away with
a similar list of hopes and concerns. She
would like to see the government spend
at least a couple of years working with
industry to develop technical standards
for farming and ranching. “It’s not the
same as construction. It’s not the same as
the oil and gas industry,” she said.
McKinnon felt that the initial
consultation went a long way
towards quelling people’s lingering
apprehension. “The meeting was very
well attended—I think the industry was
well engaged, and they appreciated
having the ministers there for the
entire morning to hear about industry
concerns. It went very well,” she said.
THE VIEW TO THE EAST
Clearly, a lot of work remains in the
“It’s the implementation
of a philosophy, or
mindset, of farm safety
that’s going to make the
difference.”
–Ron Axelson
